n advance of over forty miles in the
north threatened Kovel and Lemberg, twice as extensive an advance in
the south had reconquered Bukowina (Vol. V, 162-182), brought Cossacks
to the Carpathians, and threatened Lemberg from the south. (Vol. V,
192-198.) Lutsk (Vol. V, 159), Dubno (Vol. V, 163), and Czernowitz
(Vol. V, 162) had been taken, Kolomea and Stanislau were threatened
and were soon to fall. Upward of 400,000 prisoners were claimed by the
Russians, whose estimates of prisoners had hitherto proved reliable;
guns, supplies, munitions had been captured in incredible amounts, and
an Austrian collapse like to that of Lemberg seemed at hand.

In this situation Germany, seemingly on the point of taking Verdun,
had to turn her attention toward the east and direct new troops and
new reserves of munitions and guns to Volhynia and Galicia to save
Lemberg. (Vol. V, 198.) This effort was temporarily successful, and
July saw the Russian sweep slowing down, although by no means halted.
(Vol. V, 207-212.) Since the German victory at the Dunajec there had
been no such single success, and save for the Russian victory at
Lemberg, the Allies had won no such offensive victory.

THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME

But on July 1, 1916, just as the Russian drive was slowing down and
while Germany was straining every nerve to meet the eastern crisis,
the French and British along the Somme suddenly broke out in a
terrific attack over twenty miles of front. The French rapidly
approached Peronne, the British more slowly by steadily moving toward
Bapaume. Here was the answer to the German assertion that Verdun had
exhausted France and made an allied offensive in the west impossible.
It was as complete a refutation of reckonings for the west as the
Russian victory had been of the German calculations for the east.

And after six weeks the Somme drive is continuing, slowly, but
steadily, actually recalling in every detail the slow but steady
advance of the Germans before Verdun. Meantime about Verdun itself a
new operation has begun, the Germans have been forced to recall troops
to use at the Somme and the French, passing to the offensive, have
temporarily, at least, retaken much ground and abolished the grave
danger that existed on July 1, 1915, when they stood in their last
ditch, with the river at their backs.

GORIZIA

The Russian blow had fallen in the first days of June, 1916; the
Anglo-French attack had opened in the early days of July,